The readings for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time revolve around a central issue in

the life of discipleship to Jesus: the issue of prayer, of how to pray, what to say, of
difficulties in prayer, the question of unanswered prayer. All these issues are
swirling around in the reading chosen for this week. It's from Luke 11:1-13. Its a
long reading but I think it's very important. If you've ever tried to live a life of
prayer, I dont know about you, but for me, you learn very quickly that you don't
know what you're doing and that prayer is difficult, very difficult, and that there are
all kinds of obstacles to prayer. So the Gospel for this week, from Luke 11, is a
cluster of stories and teachings of Jesus about how to pray. So it is a very, very
important text. In a sense, it follows up from last week's Gospel, where we were
looking at Mary and Martha and how Mary had chosen the better portion, the
portion of meditating on the words of Christ and listening to the teaching of Jesus. A
kind of contemplative posture of prayer basically. So now, in this week, the 17th
Sunday, we are going to get some specifics. We are going to get some details on
how to pray from Jesus himself. So lets begin with Luke 11:1, and well read through
the whole Gospel, ask a few questions, and then go back to the Old Testament and
Psalm to see how they link with this particular text. Luke 11 says this:
He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to
him,
"Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples."
And he said to them, "When you pray, say:
"Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.Give us each day our daily
bread;
and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive every one who is indebted to us;
and lead us not into temptation."And he said to them, "Which of you who has a
friend will go to him at midnight and say to him,
`Friend, lend me three loaves;for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey,
and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within,
`Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed;
I cannot get up and give you anything'?
I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend,
yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs.
And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will
be opened to you.
For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it
will be opened.
What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a
serpent;
or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

As you can see, we have basically about four or five different episodes or segments
to this teaching on prayer. So are going to walk through them together.
1) The first element here is just the setting for the whole teaching on prayer. It's the
disciples coming up to Jesus after witnessing him pray and asking him, teach us to
pray, as John taught his disciples. So the first thing I want say here about that is
this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man of prayer. He especially in the Gospel of Luke, we
see that Jesus always prays, he especially tends to pray before significant moments
in his life. Like the choosing of the 12, he goes up and he prays all night long,
imagine that, an entire night just spent in prayer, a vigil. He also prays, obviously,
before the crucifixion, in the garden of Gethsemane, as he begins his passion, and
on other occasions as well. So what happens here is that the disciples see Jesus
praying, there watching him pray, and it inspires them to want to imitate him. They
see his sanctity, they see his holiness, and they want to be like him. But they know
they don't know what theyre doing, they don't know how to pray, and so they ask
him to teach them, not just how to pray, but to pray, in essence, like he prays. And
they kind of nudge him on by saying, well hey, John the Baptist taught his disciples
how to pray, which gives us a little window into John and his followers, that John
must've instructed them, not just in teaching, but also in the spiritual life, how to
lead a life of prayer. So they ask him to teach them how to pray and in response to
the request, the second part of the passage here is, Jesus gives them, this is very
important, he gives them what we call the Our Father, or more commonly know as
the Lord's Prayer.
Now the first thing you probably noticed as soon as you heard this reading was that
this version of the Lord's prayer is not the same as the one most of us are used to.
Most of us are used to the version of the Lord's Prayer that comes from the Gospel
of Matthew 6, which reads Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name and
so forth. Thats what scholars refer to as the long version of the Lord's Prayer. Here
in Luke's Gospel, we get what scholars refer to as the shorter version of the Lord's
Prayer. It's the same basic petitions, but they're a bit shorter. You have seven
petitions in Matthew so you have fewer ones here in Luke. And some people might
wonder, well why are their different versions of Lord's Prayer? Why is there a longer
and shorter? Did Jesus give them a longer version and then give them a shorter
version? Did he give them just one and they amended it? We don't know, it's not
clear. Even to this day in liturgical traditions, you will frequently have longer and
shorter versions of the same prayer. Thats a very standard thing. You even have a
longer and shorter version of the Mass itself, of the liturgy. So these two streams of
tradition have come down to us, and Luke is giving us the shorter version of the
prayer.
But for our purposes, what matters here, we dont have time to expound the Lord's
prayer, that will have to be some other time, what matters most for us is that the
core the prayer is still there, and it's basically two parts. First, the prayer begins
with adoration and praise of God. So the first part of the prayer is Father, let thy

name hallowed, let thy kingdom. So the first half of the prayer is focused on
petitions of God's will and God's kingdom to be done. And then the second part of
the prayer, only after having pray for God's will and to be done and for his kingdom
to come, then we move to our needs with give us our daily bread, forgive us our
sins, and lead us not into temptation. Which, by the way, note that, very interesting,
the first petition for our needs that Jesus teaches his disciples to pray about is to
give us this day our daily bread. Now, on one level, that can refer to the bread of
our existence, the bread that we need for our life, our necessary food to sustain us.
But as I have explored in more detail in my book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the
Eucharist, the word there for daily is actually epiousios, which means (its kind of a
hard word to translate) super-substantial or supernatural. Its a kind of miraculous
bread, no ordinary break. Give us this day our epiousios bread, which the early
Church Fathers, from the beginning, interpreted as a reference to the manna, the
new manna of the kingdom of God, the Eucharist, the daily bread of the new
covenant. So its interesting there, you just have a kind of implicit reference to the
bread of the kingdom of God, which the early Church identified with the Eucharist.
So the first thing Jesus asked his disciples to pray for is this mysterious epiousios
bread of the kingdom, because that's the bread they really need.
In any case, the upshot is this, note it and note it well, when Jesus is asked to teach
them to pray, he gives them a very simple prayer. He gives them a formulaic
prayer, he gives them the Our Father, he gives them the Lord's Prayer. One reason I
bring this up is because sometimes Catholics are questioned, are criticized, by nonCatholics for saying the same words over and over again in prayer, repeating
themselves in prayer and using formulaic prayer, rather than extemporaneous
prayer. Well the reason Christians have always, from the beginning, used formulaic
prayers as a core of the spiritual life, is because that is what Jesus taught them to
do. When they asked him to teach them how to pray, he didn't just say, well you
know say whatever you feel, make up whatever you want, he gave them a prayer to
remember and to repeat, and that prayer is called the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father.
So in any case, we have the request, we have the giving of the Our Father, and then
in order to expound on it a little further, Jesus goes on to give a kind of parable of
prayer. Its the parable of the friend who requests food from his friend at midnight. I
love this parable because it's a very kind of earthy way of describing another aspect
of prayer that Jesus is trying to get across. After he's taught us the words and the
form and the kind of posture of prayer in the Lord's Prayer, now he teaches his
disciples about persistence in prayer. Thats the main point of the parable. Basically
what Jesus is saying is this, just like the friend is not going get up to give his friends
some food just because he knocks, it's the middle the night, but he will get up if
he's persistent and he keeps knocking. So too God responds to our persistence in
prayer. Persistence in prayer is an important part of prayer because it's an
expression of trust in God. And that's why Jesus goes on to say, ask and it will be
given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you, in other

words, be persistent, be bold in prayer, persist in asking God and he will answer
your prayer.
Now, the immediate objection to that is, of course, the problem of unanswered
prayer. If you have ever prayed for any length of time you will know, and you will
quickly learn, that some prayers seem to go unanswered or, in fact, do go
unanswered. So why is that the case? Is it because God is silent? Is it because God
doesnt hear the prayer? Is it because God doesn't want to give us good things?
Well, Jesus doesn't answer that explicitly. He simply commands persistence and he
simply commands trust. He tells us, if you ask, it will be given. But he does go on to
give us a clue, in a sense, to the problem of unanswered prayer with an analogy,
when he goes on to say, what father among you, if his child asked him for a fish,
would give him a snake; or if his son asked him for an egg, would give him a
scorpion? Can you imagine that? Imagine asking mom what's for dinner and she
says, he will have fish tonight, and then instead you are served up a plate of
scorpions. This is hyperbole, this is exaggeration, it is supposed to be an absurd
image that Jesus is using to shock you into imagining what kind of parent would
ever give a poisonous serpent or poisonous scorpion to their child, instead of food.
Well, no one obviously. So what Jesus is saying is, just as no parent would give
something harmful to their child when the child asked for something good, so too, if
you asked the Father for good things, he's going to give them to you. And he says
(this is really heavy), if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more the heavenly Father will give good things to his children.
And he gives a clue at the very end of that statement because, let's face it, a lot of
times what we tend to ask for in prayer on are things that we may in fact not need,
or may in fact be harmful for us. Again, if youre a parent, you know that you don't
give your children everything they ask for. Beacause a lot of times the things they
ask for are actually not good for them, and, in fact, can be harmful to them. It can
actually be an expression of love to deny a request of a child because there are
asking for something that they think will be good for them, but will actually not be
good for them. So Jesus here, at the very end, gives us a little clue. Look what he
says, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
more will the heavenly Father give a lot of money, or car, or a big house - no, thats
not what he says - how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
those who ask. So the whole teaching on prayer here ends with a presupposition
that what you're asking for is something that is spiritually good for you. In this case,
that you're asking for the Holy Spirit. I dont know about you, but I can imagine a
situation where, out of the many prayers ascending into heaven, not all that many
of them are Lord, give me Holy Spirit. How many of us have fervently prayed for the
gift of the Holy Spirit? And yet that's what Jesus is describing here.
So what's going on here? What light does this shed on the nature of prayer. Well, it
basically shows that Jesus is presuming that were going to ask for things that are
actually good and actually necessary for us, and that if we ask for good things, like

the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Father is not going to deny his children those requests.
There are other passages in the New Testament that that give us some insight into
the whole question of unanswered prayer. Jesus doesn't answer every question
here, so if you want look at another passage, for example, James 4:6 says, you ask
and you do not receive because you ask wrongly in order to spend it on your
passions. So what does James say there? What he is basically saying is a lot of your
unanswered prayers are precisely prayers for things that were bad, that were not
good, that were meant to satiate your passions rather than to help you grow in
holiness, or to lead you to seek first the kingdom of God. So often times in our
prayer life our priorities are off and that's why our prayers go unanswered, not
because the Father doesn't wish to give good things to his children. So what Jesus is
doing here, the four main points: imitate him in prayer, pray the Our Father, be
persistent in prayer, and then trust that if you ask for good things God the father, as
a good father, as the one Father, the perfect Father, is going to give them. Ask and
you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you. A
lot going on there, its an amazing text, a super important passage from Luke 11.
There is so much we could say there, but there's just a few highlights of this critical
passage on prayer.
Now with that in mind let's go back to the Old Testament and see why the Church
has chosen this particular Old Testament text and the Responsorial Psalm for this
week's reading. And in this case, the reason for the selection is really pretty
obvious, because the Old Testament reading, the first reading for the 17th Sunday,
is from Genesis 18:20-32. It's the famous story of Abraham interceding for the cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah. I know this story is famous, but I want you to read it again
and let's think about it in light of the Gospel. What's the connection between this
and the Gospel? Chapter 18, verse 20 reads as follows:
Then the LORD said, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomor'rah is great
and their sin is very grave,
I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry
which has come to me; and if not, I will know."
So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom; but Abraham still stood
before the LORD.
Then Abraham drew near, and said, "Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the
wicked?
Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the place
and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?
Far be it from thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that
the righteous fare as the wicked!
Far be that from thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
And the LORD said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the
whole place for their sake."
Abraham answered, "Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who

am but dust and ashes.

Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Wilt thou destroy the whole city for
lack of five?"
And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there."
Again he spoke to him, and said, "Suppose forty are found there." He answered,
"For the sake of forty I will not do it."
Then he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are
found there." He answered, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there."
He said, "Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty
are found there."
He answered, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it." Then he said, "Oh let not
the Lord be angry,
and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there." He answered,
"For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."
Why is this passage chosen for this week? I think it is pretty obvious that the theme
is persistence in prayer. So what is going on here? Abraham is acting as an
intercessor. Hes praying for Sodom and Gomorrah, which is in itself remarkable, as
you might recall, Sodom and Gomorrah were enemies of Abraham. As we saw in
chapter 14, they were among the kings of the land who captured Lot, and they are
very wicked. So we have Abraham, in a sense, almost anticipating Jesus teaching in
the Gospel, which is love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. He is
not praying for their destruction, he is praying for mercy to be shed upon Sodom
and Gomorrah. Now he has a reason for that. Why? It's not just Sodom and
Gomorrah that are going to suffer, it's also his nephew Lot and his family. So he has
family in those cities, so he's interceding on their behalf for them to be shown
mercy by the Lord. And he is basically bargaining God down from 50 all the way to
10. So if there are just 10 righteous people in the city, God will spare it, he wont
destroy the multitude for the sake of the few. So obviously Abraham is persistent
here in prayer. He is bold in his prayer. I mean he's really audacious here in so far as
he is pushing the Lord as far as he can get him in terms of mercy to be shown
towards the sodomites and the gomorrites. Now obviously, if you know the story
you know what happens. There werent 10 righteous people, because in Genesis 19
the Angels of the Lord go in and they do in fact destroy the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah. Nevertheless, Abraham becomes the model here for boldness and
persistence in prayer, and this is precisely what Jesus is going to teach to his
disciples. When you're praying, don't give up. Keep asking, keep seeking, keep
knocking and the door will be opened. Especially if you are like Abraham here, and
you're praying for your enemies and you're praying for those who persecute you
and you are praying for mercy. That is a powerful and efficacious prayer, and
Abraham teaches us how to do it.
And if you have any doubts about that being the theme, you can simply turn to the
Responsorial Psalm, Pslam 138, and the main refrain is:

Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

And the opening lines of the Psalm:
I give thee thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart;
before the gods I sing thy praise;
I bow down toward thy holy temple
and give thanks to thy name for thy steadfast love and thy
faithfulness;
for thou hast exalted above everything
thy name and thy word.
On the day I called, thou didst answer me,
my strength of soul thou didst increase.
The whole rest of the Psalm is all about the fact that God preserves the life of the
one who prays to him. That God delivers his people, that God's steadfast love
endures forever. So the Psalm, the Responsorial Psalm, acts as a bridge between the
Old and New Testament, and puts at the very center of the liturgy on the 17th
Sunday in Ordinary Time, the theme of trust in the Lord.
On the day I called, thou didst answer me
And that is what Jesus is going to teach us, because because God is not some
despot, he is not some king on the throne in outer space, at the end of the day, in
his very being, God is Father. He is the heavenly Father and, as his children, he is
going to answer their prayers, he is going to hear their cries, and he will give good
things to those who cry out to him. He will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask it of
him.